


A Room at the End of the World

by AvaCelt



Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, Post Thousand Year Blood War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 18:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7280653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the dead buried and his friends and family back on Earth, Ichigo has to settle one last thing before forgiving himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Room at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for "Hurt/Comfort Meme."

And just like that, their world ended.

Well, it didn't end, but for Ichigo, the dust settled with the dead, and when the bodies were recovered and then buried, there wasn't much left to salvage. Rukia's steely face led the procession, the new head of the Kuchiki household, flanked by people Ichigo had never seen, followed by Renji, friends, and other souls. The casualties were aplenty, much like they always knew they would be because it was all a cycle, a cycle that guaranteed death, destruction, and rebirth. Ichigo wondered if Byakuya's soul transformed into a dove, free from his duties and his pain. He wondered if Ichimaru had found the peace he had never known in the afterlife.

In all his years of running to and fro, sometimes with Rukia's power, other days with his hollow's, Ichigo always found a sense of exhilaration that would allow him to soar beyond his pain. Nothing could touch him, not as long as he had a mission in mind, a reason to get up in the morning, a detailed agenda that kept his mind focused and away from the hollowness that had been eating away at his insides since his mother died. He'd found peace when he became a Shinigami, when he rescued Rukia, Inoue, freed Ginjou from his bonds, when he killed Bach, destroyed Haschwalth, stabbed Ur-

He blinked. He was back on Earth. The mass funeral had taken place ten weeks ago, the smaller, private ones out of his reach because he didn't know Kaien Shiba, or the seventh seat of the thirteenth division, or the woman named Yachiru Kenpachi, the countless other faceless beings who'd perished. Kukaku had fallen when she'd seen her brother again, and Ganju had cried “nii-san!” while Ichigo remained in the subaltern, away from the family he'd never known, away from the history that was his to carry but never to claim. The Winter War, the Thousand Year War, the final moments of every lost soul a reminder of a history Ichigo had no connection to but because of the fact that he was Isshin Shiba's eldest son, half a Quincy because of Masaki, a mistake that should have never been conceived. Ichigo hoped Byakuya had found his wife, and Matsumoto was no where to be found when Hinamori's body was laid to rest in her old neighborhood in Rukongai, the one Hitsugaya closed off for a month so he could plant peach, plum, and apple trees in because he missed his friend.

Maybe Matsumoto went to see Ichimaru at his final resting place. Ichigo never found out, because the hollowness still crawled the recesses of his soul, and he'd rescued Rukia and Inoue, freed Ginjou by murdering him in cold blood, cut down Bach out of necessity, and Uryuu-

“You should go see him,” Chad advised, blowing warm wisps into the cold air. “He's been awake for a week now and Inoue won't stop feeding him bread. He's starting to look healthier, but it'll only be so long before Dr. Ishida bans Inoue from bringing anything but herself and her purse into his room.”

“I signed the card,” Ichigo offered, like it helped.

“We all did,” Chad added patiently. He gave Ichigo a long look, one that Ichigo pointedly ignored. “He asked for plums, so I'm going to get some before I go.” Chad nodded once and then made his way down the hill, away from Ichigo's still form.

Ryuuken had almost died, but Uryuu had jumped in, saving his father and taking a sword to the shoulder. Ichigo had fought. He'd fought so hard, he'd felt the thundering in his heart increase with every parry, every thrust, every critical hit. In the end, Bach took control, just like his hollow did, just like Soul Society, just like the meds did and in the end-

In the end, he'd hurt a friend, an enemy, someone he swore he'd bring home, but all he carried back was a broken man who left him to save him.

“You can't have an existential crisis every time you save the world, Kurosaki-san,” Urahara had remarked on their ride back to the human world.

“I fell in love when I stabbed him,” Ichigo told Karin a week after the mass funeral.

“You'll end up like Aizen if you keep crushing your human side,” Kyoraku mentioned casually when they visited Ukitake's grave at his family's estate after the mass funeral. “That's how Ginjou-san almost won, right? He came for your heart when you were the weakest. He knew what made you human, and he almost killed them, didn't he?”

Ichigo knew it was the guilt, a festering mass of self-loathing, clinical depression, and unbridled rage that infected every corner of his life. He didn't love Uryuu because murderers didn't love; they only killed. He was a weapon, a son, a brother, a tool for those who saw fit to use him. If he'd truly loved his friends, Tsukishima would never have hurt them the way he did, Uryuu would never have seen a hospital bed, Rukia wouldn't have almost seen the guillotine, Orihime wouldn't have had to sacrifice herself for their sake, Uryuu wouldn't have had to-

“He'd have left you even if you'd told him,” Chad had told him the day they came back to the human world, away from the killing and the hatred that bled into his soul when he couldn't help it.

“I almost killed him,” Ichigo told the cold snowflakes that landed on his still form while Chad shopped for his plums and Inoue packed her bread basket.

“Keep hating yourself and watch how quickly you lose the rest.”

Ichigo spun around and met nothing but the coldness of the winter air and the snowfall that steadily picked up with the minutes.

“Mom...” Ichigo whispered.

The sky was pure white, whiter than Uryuu's uniform before blood, grime, and tears painted him into a portrait tinged with death. When Ichigo had carried his barely breathing form back into the human world, he'd pressed Uryuu's face to his chest, cradled him in his arms like a lover, brushed his inky black hair from his bruised face so he could make sure he was breathing, because Uryuu had to live, he had friends, a father, Inoue, Chad, Tatsuki, Keigo, Mizuiro, Ichi-

Now that Ichigo remembered, it was snowing the night they landed in Karakura. Uryuu was taken from his arms and airlifted to the hospital. Ryuuken had kept him out of the loop, but Inoue and Chad had found a way to weasel into the hospital, and Isshin didn't come ten feet within his person with Uryuu's name on his lips.

“Free yourself.”

“I'm trying,” Ichigo whispered back. “It doesn't help that you're dead,” he told his mother. “It doesn't help that you're not here.”

“I'll always be here, Ichigo,” she told him gently, and Ichigo touched the place above his heart, felt his mother brush her wispy fingers against his cheek.

“Go, before you lose what little you have left,” he heard someone say, but he wasn't sure if it was his dead mother or his eternal twin, the hollow.

“KUROSAKI-KUN!” Inoue came barreling towards him, a pale pink scarf wrapped loosely around her neck, a woven basket adjusted on the crook of her arm. He oomph'd as she pulled him into a tight hug, and he hugged back because they were bound by memories, by blood, and by their love for the ones closest to them. “Were you going to the hospital? I just spoke to Sado-kun and he said he's picking up plums! I packed extra juice boxes with the bread, so we can have dinner together!”

Ichigo nodded and started following her down the hill as she chattered about the nurses, the bland hospital food, her attempts at making Uryuu miso soup, and Chad and Keigo's efforts to help her grill fish. Her smile melted the chill glazed over his cheeks, warmed the brown of his eyes, and made him look forward to his reckoning. Chad met them at the corner, a bag of plums and assorted puddings nestled in the crook of his arm, and he merely smiled as his larger friend nodded and listened intently to Inoue's stories.

While they were checking into the hospital, Ichigo escaped to the rooftop, but not for long because Ryuuken gave him a single dirty look and Ichigo was shuffling down the steps and towards Uryuu's room. Ichigo wished he had taken up smoking, because at least then, at least then his heartbeat would've found some kind of equilibrium.

“Why do you keep punishing yourself?” He asked himself. “You didn't ask to be born.”

He also didn't ask to have crippling depression, or the three different kinds of medication he had to take lest he wished to stay confined in his room for the entirety of the day. He didn't ask for a hollow, or a Fullbring, or Quincy powers, or another burden, but it seemed that's all he had.

“Ishida-kun wants to see you,” Inoue beamed, after stepping out of his room. “I'm gonna go get some coffee now.”

She disappeared down the hall, and just like that, Ichigo was alone because Chad had gone for coffee five minutes earlier, and Ryuuken was glaring at him from the end of the hall, and there was nothing but a sliding door between Ichigo and his future.

“Forgive yourself because's he's already forgiven you,” he thought he heard his mother say, but what could she have said, she was dead.

“Kurosaki, I can literally feel you haunting my doorway,” he heard Uryuu gripe from inside the room.

Ichigo blinked. “I'm not a ghost.”

“Then stop acting like one,” and Ichigo heard the sigh behind his words.

“OK,” because Ichigo had very few words, and fewer chances left to apologize. He slid open the door, and let the dull, gray walls steel his senses.

Inside, Uryuu was about to bite into a loaf of bread. Ichigo stared.

Uryuu rolled his eyes. “There's enough for everyone.”

“One step at a time,” said the hollow within.

“One step at a time,” Ichigo said out loud.

“One piece of bread at a time,” Uryuu chuckled. “Inoue-san's juice boxes won't be enough to moisten your mouth, so wait for the coffee, will you?”

“You can do that,” his mother told him, gently ruffling his hair.

“I can do that,” he said to the man he'd found himself falling over the edge for.

And just like that, the world didn't end.

“It's just the beginning,” Isshin had told him on their way home, after Uryuu was airlifted away, after they'd changed into jeans and t-shirts. “It starts over. People start over.”

Inoue and Chad came in with steaming cups of coffee, handed out the cups, and settled down for a long night of drivel and laughter. They managed to turn in for the night on the cots that Ryuuken had installed earlier, and Ichigo stared out the window, at Uryuu, back to the window, and back again at Uryuu.

“There's always something left to salvage,” Uryuu said softly. “Different scraps of cloth can make a blanket. You can then give that blanket to someone you love. Things don't lose meaning just because they're broken. They just happen to need a little fiddling before they come out better than before.”

“Tell that to my medicine cabinet,” he laughed.

“At least you're not on blood thinners,” Uryuu sighed.

Ichigo nodded. “True.”

At the Ishida family plot, there were only three bodies. There was Uryuu's mother, his grandfather, and a granduncle that passed away before Uryuu was born. There was no space for Uryuu or his father, because Ichigo realized, finally, that they'd survived, that Uryuu had survived Ichigo hurting him again, that Uryuu was here, on blood thinners, had eaten a dinner of bread, plums, pudding, and coffee, and that Uryuu, Uryuu was alive.

“Shit,” Ichigo whispered to himself.

“Your language is still as disgusting as ever,” Uryuu pointed out from his bed.

And Ichigo smiled.

* * *

 

 


End file.
